


Where The Fires Are Blossoming Bright

by Not_Your_Dhoine



Series: Fire flies higher for no ash to thrash [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Curtain Fic, Elements of ooc, Explicit Language, Healing, Heterosexual Character, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, International Fanworks Day 2021, M/M, Minor Character Death, Prostitution survivor, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 17,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27110719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_Your_Dhoine/pseuds/Not_Your_Dhoine
Summary: Welcome, welcome! Sit by my fire to spread* your tired legs and warm the frozen arse! Feel free to fill your chaperon hat with sweets, drink Dwarven spirit and eat some more of these soft Temerian buns!Aep sorg shed wann. Through fall and fair.*P.S. almost 3 months after publishing the preface of this fic I noticed that mixed the words and wrote "spread your tired legs" instead of "stretch" them. I like the dubious humorous sense of this mistake so much that...just have left it as it is :DDD.Instagram acc with illustrations: not_your_dhoine_fiction#wherethefiresareblossomingbright
Relationships: Iorveth & Vernon Roche, Iorveth (The Witcher)/Original Male Character(s), Iorveth/Vernon Roche
Series: Fire flies higher for no ash to thrash [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2159550
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. Prologue

Where the fires are blossoming bright,

Fern and thymian

Carpet the way to your sweetest night

Under the blushing sun.

And if the hollow endless might

Nightmares make you blue,

Near eternally burning light,

I am waiting for you…

Elven lullaby

Prologue

"Spawning…dirt…"

A puddle of pot washing splashed loudly under the feet. With one hand on the belly and the other – on the wall, whose stones knuckled like head crowns, Aenerewel stepped over the slimy stench. Her feet in the wooden boots reached the house door, where a woman with a bucket was standing, clasping a dirty–faced kid by the hand. Another baby was grasping the gray shabby linen cloth he was tied to the mother’s breast with. In the shadow of the room, behind the woman’s back, you could see one more pair of hungry glistening little eyes. They winked and disappeared as soon as the elven woman put her other hand on the belly and uttered:

"Repeat, what’ve you just said."

The woman stared at Aenerewel with outrage. It wasn’t the first time she entered the slum of Ellander, but only today the pot washing was finally spilt under her feet. Pff, walking around, this pointy–eared: looks like hardly ever fifteen winters has lived, and now not only knocked–up herself, but also helping all these whorehouse vermin to deliver. As well as selling the concoctions and evil herbs at the market – those, which a decent woman should not even know about!

"I haven’t heard the answer."

Always in clean dresses, with the head uncovered. And on the naked leg, forgive Lebioda the Prophet my eyes, an unwashable flower is painted.

"And you won’t. Go, go, pass by – or your whore sons all will die."

Aenerewel wanted, at first, to enlighten the townswoman regarding so called «whore sons», who take rather too much after all these local relatively decent «not drinking, not beating, working» husbands, but spilt knowledge of another kind instead:

"Whore sons will be all right, it is yours that give me concern."

"Are you daring to threaten me, pointy–eared scum?! I am to call the guards and you will never ever again step in this quarter!"

The she–elf tucked a long walnut lock by the ear:

"The only scum I see here has just been spilt under my feet. If you go on this way, I won’t be able to enter the quarter, that’s true – the guards, whom you are awaiting so much, will seal the gates due to typhoid fever, cholera and other plagues: whatever you would name them, one has to die."

The dirty word ready to be gushed out at the she–elf, froze in the woman’s mouth.

"Wars and epidemics are the fearsome plagues, but the one coming with them gives much more fear – the hunger. Even as we speak, your child is eating the dirt from his own fingers, as you don’t have time to look after him. The gods gave you a stout body, but there is no power left in it. The back aches, the heart is sapless. The moon hardly turns pale before you carry again. I have something to help you. Not with me, but at the Catherine’s tavern. The herbs are used up fast – she brews much vodka. But a good housewife always has something in stock."

Aenerewel turned around and went on. A couple of herb blades fell from the basket behind her back and remained lying in dirt.

***

"D’ ya throw on your coat her’, as usual?" – the laundrywoman dragged the bundle to Aenerewel.

The she–elf nodded gratefully, gave orens for the work and, sitting on the bench, pulled high boots – made of solid leather, they got softened after long town strolls. Then, over the dress, she wore the leather coat just below the knee. Seven moons have already paled since the healer’s coat fitted on her belly. Aenerewel’s husband, Athair, was a leather craftsman and resized it without many words – knowing that one’d better not to ask such an unstoppable healer as his wife leave her work. Nevertheless, every night he placed the hand on the life, whose arrival to the world he had been expecting so much, and kissed another one, whom he loved as much as his own existence, asking: whether the patient was the last one – not only for that day, but till the time of Velen, autumnal equinox, would come.

At the entrance to the tent of a wandering Zerrikanian merchant, where Aenerewel was called to examine a weak feverish girl of two years at the most, the she–elf clasped the heavy healer’s mask behind the head. Three times a week and at any time of need she was seeing the suffering ones – especially when a child would soon come into the world. On other days she was busy with the selling of herbs gathered single–handedly. As an apprentice of the village wise woman, Aenerewel had never given any official medical oaths, but never divided the suffering into her own folk and dh’oine. Many citizens, especially the nobles, looked down on the she–elf, but the cult of Healer Goddess Melitele honoured in Ellander did not allow to let the hate off the leash. Temple sisters provided the ill with the help, but medical sphere had always experienced lack of hands. Moreover, Aenerewel offered something, over which holy fathers and prophets had been always disagreeing with simple mortal women. Whether you are a she–elf, she–dwarf or a dh’oine.

The life of the little patient, last for that day and till the Velen’s time, was out of danger: being born before the сaravan’s arrival from Zerrikania to Temeria, she couldn’t handle a new climate, while her mother – here that citizen with the bucket would let off steam – the mother had hardly turned fifteen hot sunburnt years and lacked lifeblood to feed and strengthen the child. Covering her face with an embroidered shawl of golden and partially torn threads, the Zerrikanian woman followed the she–elf hands with eagerness: on a scroll piece Aenerewel was writing out an affordable mixture of the restorative remedy. Sad, deep and blue as the star sky desert, eyes of the young mother shone gratefully.

Before leaving the tent, the healer stopped to wash her hands in a bowl handed in by an old woman sitting in the corner. Heavyset and crooked as an ancient willow, she looked up at the she–elf with her milky and round, as if it was a spider’s belly, eye surrounded by the web of gray locks. The woman left her head uncovered – she was indifferent to the ancient traditions and modern matters: how many times had she asked her grandson, the merchant, to let her, in her venerable age, die in the homeland, but the caravan noises and ringing coins shouted her voice down… She murmured something looking at Aenerewel and pointing with the three fingers at the healer’s belly.

One of the old woman’s fingers was mutilated with a scar making it impossible to bend. The second one, deformed and coarse from work, was wrapped in a faded ritual tattoo. A ring of darkened silver seemed to be sealed into the bone of the third finger.

"What is she saying?"

The merchant approached with a scrawny pouch and answered in a fluent Common (he lead many caravans through Temeria, and now made up his mind to stay here forever):

"The granny is seeing a son, and not the only one. The three of them. Here it is your payment."

Aenerewel was putting off her mask in confusion: for now, she was aware only that her first child would come into the world on the next moon after Midayote, the summer equinox. But every language has its words of gratitude.

As the dust under the departing footsteps settled, the old woman lied back in her corner – the one less windswept of all. If not for her grandson, she would confess everything. Stupid donkey, following the ringing coins as the mouse goes for the rat catcher. On the other hand, is it worth worrying the youth. Yes, that foreigner woman was older than the girl, whom her grandson pulled away from the family and tossed to the Temerian earth, but had not she herself been expecting a first born once? Expecting, and not the only one: four children answered her call and found their ways through the darkness when the first drops of sunrise fell to the cotton of clouds. The four passed into the darkness. Alone she remained.

And if it is how it should be, why had not they left her alone?! To die…

The old woman was crying out in her sleep again, and the merchant wife, who was rebuilding the golden bridges of threads on her clothes, put aside the sewing to calm her down. The granny seemed to scatter her mind significantly on the way to Temeria, because having grasped her granddaughter–in–law’s tunic with one hand, and, pointing at the retracted belly with the other, the ancient Zerrikanian uttered:

"I see a son. And not the only one. Three sons you will have, but one of them you will lose. Forever."


	2. Soldier's herbs and the wind

“Three witchers – from schools of the Wolf, of the Cat and of the Manticore – are coming to the swamps. Suddenly a wyvern flies and drops a dead kikimore into the swamp…”

If it weren’t for that particular occasion, Vernon Roche would definitely make a strict reprimand to the resting soldiers – no matter if they belonged to his commando or came from the dwarven army regiments.

“Or from scoia’tael, for example”, Roche’s steps hastened. 

Another time. It is the first week after the war. And someone had no time. Or was running out of it.

“You don’t say so. And, for information: wyverns do not feed on kikimores…”, Triss showed up from the nearby tent.

Just yesterday was her hair chestnut, but now it was shining like a ginger fire and glistening with the ribbons blue like the chilly skies. Nothing else but kind of magic.

“Is it true that trolls stuff themselves with the sorceresses?”, a she-dwarf by the campfire looked up at Triss from the depths of her luxurious girlish beard.

“Trolls of all kinds are a work for the witcher, but Geralt is not to show up today”, added the Rivian from the tent’s depths.

Despite the emptiness around the Iorveth’s tent, Roche was aware – everyone сoming close to the scoia’tael leader was followed by more than a few sets of eyes. And more than a few arrowheads. Vernon got a document holder out of his sleeve and demonstrated it to the empty surroundings just to be safe. Only after that he entered.

Iorveth was somewhere else, and everything seemed to point at his recent leaving: a healing smell was yet floating in the air: soft marigold, gentian and other soldier’s herbs. The ointment for wounds and scars – Roche knew it firsthand, from the military medic carts. Furthermore, it was gentian flowers, where the Blue Stripes got their heraldic colour from, despite the whiteness of the emblem lilies. Iorveth smelled like Vernon Roche’s personal eternal battle.

The Temerian looked around: the belongings had been mostly packed and rolled into a couple of bundles stained by time and weather. Apart from the rolled blankets and a sleeping mat only torn chainmail armor, laid out for repair, and a change of shining knee-high boots remained uncovered. The elf seemed to give a new beauty to a faded floral pattern on the boots.

Roche was shifting his feet. Maybe, he’d better go.

He looked around the tent for a last time, when the field wind pierced the textile walls like a banshee scream and ripped out the papers, previously lying pressed by the rolled blanket.

“Bloede arse **(stupid ass)** , try to explain then to him, that it was just the wind…”, Roche stooped to pick the papers up. He was holding the drawings – one of a young smiling she-elf with her hair carelessly fluttering and shining with skillfully drawn reflections. She has a serious, reproachful and wise look in the second picture. The drawings had been made with charcoal, and her hair left a trace on the Roche’s hand.

Vernon placed everything back to the way it was before and went away. The wind had already been going somewhere far away.


	3. Temeria Above All

“The Council is tomorrow. I must collect the thoughts.”

At first Roche even liked to be garrisoned in the Vergen palace chambers. His room complied completely with the dwarven principle: “Part of the mountain – part of the crew”. The geometrically perfect dwarf-made cave had no windows, but its entrance corridor door opened to the mountain face with waterfalls and hanging bridges. Even inside you could freely breathe mountain air, and the strict complexity of wall decorations delighted the eye.

“Good whatever time of day, dear sir, so, there is this elfo leader, that one-eyed, wants in…”

“Ssh! How many times did I order to address as it is written in the crib notes from Cecil Burdon - those he handed out to all the guards and hanged in the armory!”, a guardian she-dwarf pushed her brother in arms aside. “Dear Sir Roche, I bring my pardon to you, here it is the leader of our scoia’tael brothers, Iorveth.”

Roche creaked so harshly with the chair while jumping up to his feet that the guardian mistook it for the fright and promised to her fellow soldier additional push-ups from the wall. Till morning.

Upon answering “Ceadmil” **(Greetings)** to the guardian and his declaration that Iorveth is «a brother of all the leaders of all the kind times whatever day it is», the elf stood in the doorway at last with his arms in dusty gloves crossed.

“Are all the fighters for free Temeria assigned with such a retinue, or only the most distinguished ones?”

Roche wished he could hide his confusion in the folds of the chaperone hat – it was on the bed, lying around the shirts worn to Councils and celebrations. There were much more Councils than the celebrations in his life.

“I do not know the level of your expertise in the fighters for free Temeria.”

“I am no expert at them at all. I know the only one, and he has been enough for me over the years… By the way,” Iorveth stopped spinning the web of his shamelessly green eyes around the cold silver lilies, “as for the state affairs. My Seidhe **(elves)** informed of your coming in my absence. I mean, I get that Temeria is above all for you, but wandering about the tents, tossing away map copies of its areas, especially the outdated ones, and…”

“Give it to me! That was not meant…for you!”

“Why should I even care?! Here, here…take it,” Iorveth handed the map holder to Vernon, it got warm after lying within the elven clothes. “I am not up to seek for the ancient treasures and defeat the dragons, in the nearest future at least.”

“I was going solely with my usual personal matters, and just happened to know – thought you could say something about the future of Vergen and these lands…”

“And the whole Temeria. As far as I find necessary to share something with you, I’ll let you know, don’t worry,” the mischievous grin made the scar more than usually shown from under the crimson bandana.

“Is that all for today? Then get out,” moving forward to push the elf aside and send him out of the room, Roche touched the emblems on his chest – they lacked only Temerian lilies. “In fact, I’ve got a Council within one breath, Iorveth.”

“Awesome rhyme. Va fail **(Good bye),** ” Iorveth glanced at the stool with a wash-basin and colorful pieces of Vergen soap. “Just wondering, why doesn’t your soap yet have white and blue stripes,” he slammed the door.

The room suited perfectly for contemplation and paper work for the Councils. Which Roche had much more in his life.


	4. Our final war

It happens often that the events and meetings, we are bracing ourselves almost all our life for, fly by us like a crumpled draft of a story, which could have yet become a well-done novel. At the same time, the subsequently important things happen in no time and come from an unexpected direction.

One corner from the corridor leading to the Saskia’s reception chambers, Roche stopped and leaned on the ledge in the window niche. The Temerian has recently been losing the reins of power over his nervous system due to insomnia and “soldier’s illness” – the feeling of uncertainty what to do after another battle and the smells of blood and death striking his nostrils from the depth of the subconscious. Even if you are standing on the terrace climbed with roses and wear the chain of silver lilies on your shoulders. Roche rolled up the sleeve to uncover an aroma bracelet and held the wooden medallion, darkened from soaking oils and decorated with the green leaves, to his face. The breath relaxed and calmed down the heart.

Iorveth left the treasury chambers and appeared on the first floor of the palace. The leader had a festive look, despite the faded intricate pattern on his sand-colored trousers and on an orange-blossom shirt. Having covered the forever empty eye socket and the cheek with the bandana, the scoia’tael took a coarse wool cloak, hanging from his arm, and folded it about himself. He hid a bulky leather bag under the cloak folds. He looked even more floating without his usual armor, especially when a fresh colored herbal embroidery on his ochre boots was emerging from under the cloak.

Iorveth came to Saskia for the audience. Unarmed, festively dressed, with his wounds uncovered. And what’s more, he was smiling. Getting faded for a moment, the smile lighted up again bright like the Vergen sun, which was scorching the Mother – Goddess’ stone bosom. Roche closed his eyes.

He would give all the treasures from the dwarven caves to see how the elf was smiling. The Temerian inhaled for the last time the wood aroma of the emerald leaves. The queen’s guard patrol shifted and passed him by.

***

On that day Roche did not return to his “home”, but strolled to the mountain platform, where three miners had been resting amazed by the rune master’s work. Roche sat in the distance, placing a bulky leather bag between the knees – the snake on the bag’s clasp was elusively twisted in its eagerness to satisfy its unappeasable hunger with its own tail. The coin purse inside was heavy.

The Temerian understood – that was his resignation.

Long before the heavy chain of silver lilies was laid on his shoulders, Roche had known that the essence of the intelligence officer’s work was to pass the information, crucial for the untarnished history creating, into the right hands and in its purest form.

The mission entrusted to Roche by the queen Saskia suited some Oxenfurt academicians better. In the nearest days Vernon Roche is to be redeployed to Vizima to work in the Temerian archives and bring together the documentary landscape of the newly created world. Put simply, he will write the history of his beloved land. Finds the recipe for the peace creation with the ideal proportions of glory and death – so that those coming after us would strive to create their own world. Oh would just remember that the recipe of poison is written on every second page of the history.

Inspite of Vernon’s miraculous talent for documentary work, the task, which became a lifetime one since that day, was not the major and not the only one. Just the second to the last. 

“The Blue Stripes special forces are to be deployed to Maribor,” Saskia crushed the blown in branchlet on the floor with her sabaton shoe. Last night was a windy one.

“I am to understand right, Your Majesty, that I must redeploy the forces first, and then begin my work in Vizima?”

“No, Vernon Roche. This time you are mistaken. It is Ves, who is leading the forces to Maribor. There she stays – to command her own patrol unit.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“The audience comes to its end like everything in this world, but your brevity had spared us some time for answering the questions. The only one question.”

“Is the fate of the scoia’taels, who came with Iorveth to defend Vergen, known?”

“I do not predict the fates, Vernon Roche, I decide them. As for the Scoia’taels – the world is open for them. They all had the past they will want to return to. If the future is the only thing at their disposal, so, why not to spend it in Maribor? It belonged to them since the ancient times, up to the moment we turned our arms against each other in the fight for the grain sack. Same hands, which had tied the sack up, would open it for us, but the hands do not work if the head is chopped off. Iorveth is to keep his head, but from now on his hands are going to make wreaths from the forest lilies but not the conspiracies. Hearts of Viziman swamp bears will be the only thing he targets. Only when strictly necessary – if his life is in danger or so."

Hammer clank from the street broke the silence in the room. At the other end of the table queen Saskia looked up at Roche with her eyes, tired from the candle lights burning sleeplessly in the night.

“Vernon Roche, I want this war to be my final one. Our final one.”

Rune master wet his hands and wiped the forehead, leaving stripes of cleanness and freshness on his soot-dusted face.

Somewhere, at the earth’s heart, rocks gave in to the pickaxe and fell, revealing a natural cave no living being had ever stepped into. The resting miners guffawed approvingly in response to the underground greetings from their invisible colleagues.

The elven leader was granted a pardon. And a patch of ground for living, for the special services in the last war. In the area of those former Aen Seidhe lands he had been so much fighting for. Where you can now hear the Viziman forests. Or, to be more precise, that part of them, which guarded the area between the city and the desperate swamps.

“Your Majesty, allow me to clarify: has the kings' council decided to place the most infamous scoia’tael rebel by the side of Vizima? Not by Vergen – the city of new equality and freedom?”

“You had the right to the only one question, Vernon Roche,” Saskia smiled. “Fire of a fight always leaves the embers behind, mainly the ashes of those, who was burnt for freedom. And Iorveth is fire. Leave him burn to heat the newly built houses and you will find yourself in the smouldering ruins. We could surely grant him the peace he had been fighting so much for, in a slightly another way – by exiling him to Flotsam – unfortunately, there are plenty of elven ruins everywhere. But Flotsam lies on the border… No doubt, the annoying bloodsucking insects are better seen at the distance, but they are repelled only when fly close enough. Where they are noticed by a sharp eye. And squished by a daring hand.”

The light from the stained glass window made the chain on Roche’s heart shine.

“But,” the queen yawned “a squished mosquito only wastes the sucked blood in vain. That is why I prefer to hold the bloodsuckers at the distance appropriate for living and do it with the help of the peaceful aroma lamp light. Those winning the war burn themselves often of the peace they had been so much fighting for."

Roche nodded.

“I am glad we finish at the point where everyone is pleased: Iorveth loves freedom and the ancestors’ memory – he will live in the forest of the ancestors, though not of his own, but there are plenty of elven ruins everywhere – here I repeated myself, which is not in my habit. He will live free – yes, limited by the Viziman guard patrols at the forest borders and the swamp bears – depending where to go, but one can know the limits of freedom only when they exist. The memory of the Aen Seidhe folk is respected as well – so why doesn’t their leader write a couple of chapters for your work: you can visit his house at any time and bring ancient manuscripts mentioned in your permission - the document will be given to you in Vizima. You pursued Iorveth for so long that leaving you without a reward after the successful campaign and not let you decide the fate of the one, who has been your desired goal all these years… Congratulations, Vernon Roche, you fulfilled the task. Got him. Now he is yours.”

“I express my gratitude, Your Majesty.” The Adam apple was rolling in the collar folds like pebbles on the seabed.

“And now have rest, Vernon Roche. We all need nothing more than an absence of any bloodshedding thoughts in his head.”

The task was impossible, as the most of those the Temerian fulfilled in his life.

Roche smiled.


	5. Love thy enemy

Vernon Roche was in low spirits on the day of receiving his first salary. The purse weight was not the case – on the contrary, getting a substantial sum for tracking down the bully thugs and hitting them back (the things he got accustomed to do since his childhood) – was the gift of the destiny.

On that day the new fellow-recruits decided to follow the ancient tradition – to spend their first salary to the glory of the future fortune growth. They dragged him to the best brothel in Vizima, if not in the whole Temeria. “ _And – not – in – the – usual - one, - but – in – that – one – and - only, - come - on, - don’t – be – such – a - baby!_ ” brothel in the non-human district.

All the brothels are alike. Each is unhappy in its own way. Vernon Roche hated the brothels. He grew up there.

“That one and only ” differed in the only one thing – a she-elf was sitting at its entrance and read the future. For 5 orens you took a bunch of herbs from the pouch on the wooden carved table. The Herb Reader set it afire, read the smoke and delivered the verdict of fate. The fates differed. One craved for gold, and, upon receiving the prediction, came inside to spend the promised richness. Other asked about the family and the children – future, born or those he had not yet known. If they were doing well, the visit to the brothel would become a cause for joy. Were they in a bad way, the cause of visit would remain the same.

Vernon didn’t tell the guys to hold their excitement down: as far as his childhood he was sweeping “the best Temerian boudoirs” and got enough of all these herbs, now lying burnt on the tray.

Roche stayed outside so that not to make himself at home when unbidden guests, wandering merchants and Holy Inquisition swarmed together in there. A courtesan came out of the door and, shivering in the wind, placed a steaming mug with a drink in front of the fortune teller. The she-elf took a sip – no one wanted to know the future at the moment. Upon sweeping her questioning eyes over Vernon, the courtesan disappeared inside, scratching her thigh and trying not to make another run on the mended stocking.

Roche took 5 orens out of the pocket. The king’s smile shone as the coin touched the table. The she-elf replaced the empty pouch on the table with a new one from the corner of the terrace. It was clearly standing in the wind for a long time, because, instead of the dried tuft Vernon pulled out a fresh herb stem occasionally happened to be there. It wanted neither to burn nor to give smoke.

After some fruitless attempts the Herb Reader put the candle aside. The Temerian reached his hand to the pouch again when a she-elf uttered, looking through the clay mug steam:

“You will have an enemy. And not the only one. But the one will be the mightiest of them all. A chain of silver will lie on your shoulders and bind you with the enemies, but with this one the most tightly of all. And this is the chain you are not to break.”

Upon springing up to his feet, Roche creaked so harshly with the chair that the she-elf asked with a laughter:

“So, not even gonna ask me how to defeat your enemy?”

“Wouldn’t even think of it!”

“You are right. It is hidden from me. But you will learn.” The fortune teller sipped her tea.

***

Roche spent his first salary on booze. Military service saved him from a totally deep drinking, but he bought the most expensive carmine wine he could find that evening. It had a marvelous taste, but did not make the morning square patrolling more pleasant.

A murderer, accused of treason, and a thief, who sacked the supply train and the village, were to be executed that day. All in one. Roche put all the efforts holding back the citizens, who came to gaze at the execution, with his battle-axe.

A delicate figure was dragged to the gallows. Only one. A gray linen shirt stained with blood from the smashed nose was torn apart – to bind the cracked head. Two pointed ears tied round by the brown bandage. A she-elf.

Having washed his face, Roche stretched his bones on the barracks bed and pulled the blanket over his head to hide from the ringing bells – time of church came after the execution. A street preacher was yelling in front of the windows at the top of his restless voice:

“Love thy enemy!”


	6. No Time To Love, No Time To Die

“Commander, will you permit?”

Having put aside the already silenced flute, Iorveth nodded and wiped his face – the day was windy, and the wind blasts brought the leader to tears.

“Caed, cared. Que te eras’wett, Eniaddan?” **(Greetings to you, warrior. What do you need, Eniaddan?)**

The kneeling elf had proved himself to be a truly skillful warrior – descending from the dh’oine-slaughtered noble family, he began his career in a fighting pit of Novigrad.

“Neen, neen, seasta!” **(No, no, stand up!)**

The young man disobeyed his commander, сupping the Iorveth’s hand instead and pressing it to his lips:

“Me…as…meas” **(Th…Thank you)** , Eniaddan had already partially lost his mother tongue, but never forgot the words of gratitude.

His palms were tender – the young man had just recently taken up arms again – when the scoia’taels released him from the port tavern-brothel, to where he had been sold by the fighting pit owner – there was simply no purpose in leaving such a beautiful face to be torn apart by bears, werewolves and cutthroats of all races, if it could be sold at a far better price to the place, where one could put it to the best use.

Iorveth used force and raised Eniaddan carefully from his knees:

“Your service in my detachment is the priceless honor for me.”

“Yes, but only one of the two. Unfortunately, in this life I can repay for the kindness only either with love or death.”

“No time to die.”

As well as to love, - the leader wiped the eyelid again. The wind, bloede arse, that is the wind again.

“May I visit you and bring you happiness at the sunset?”

“Neen. Meas.” **(No. Thank you)**

“At your orders, commander. Whatever you decide, I will be there. Dice shed me hel’caemm.” **(Call me in case you need something)**

***

“Commander, any orders to attend to before the sunset?” Scianwen’s high-pitched voice echoed back from the walls of the cave, where Iorveth had camped out for the night.

“Neen. Meas, Scianwen. Od…Please, tell Eniaddan…to come and sit by my fire if he is ready with the daily duties. He was meaning to tell me his life story, but we couldn’t afford the time…”

“Yed.” **(Yes)**

When the she-elf’s steps disappeared in the distance, Iorveth shucked off his grass green quilted robe and set by the fire leaving only trousers and shirt on. Linen garments, previously kept bundled on the bottom of the travel sack, were itching like a home cat and smelled with cleanness and light. There was a source with crystal clear water in their camping cave, but for some reasons the leader suddenly felt dirty for these clothes.

The elf squirmed and hug himself by the shoulders. He felt cold although the fire was burning bright.

“Caed **(greetings)** , commander. May I make your night kind, eveigh aine **(beautiful light)**?”

The young man came in and stopped reverently on the border between the light and the darkness. He was truly handsome in the way the ancient chroniclers, who had been writing even about the unseen, had depicted the elves. Fire was dancing in his sky blue eyes; dark neat wave of shiny curls was winding around the ears and shoulders; tender petals of lips were trembling waiting for the answer.

“Hel’ess leis me.” **(Stay with me for a while)**

“Que siett eras’wett? Minne?” **(What would you like? Love?)**

“Tuilleadh ro luath.” **(It is too early yet)**

“May I in such case help you to pass the time with a dance? Many say that I seem to tell the story with the dance.”

“Yed. Maith.” **(Please)**

The young man smiled and stepped forward towards the dancing fire, which seemed to burn brighter in the jealous rivalry. There was no music in the night military cave camp, but the elf’s dance seemed to be born even before any music appeared in the world. The flexible body was weaving the carpet of movements born in Dol Blathanna (Valley of Flowers) and full of innocent sensuality; braided them with the bright colors of Novigrad streets and the superficially careless simplicity of villages and outskirts.

During his dance, the freed warrior neither left the flaming circle, on the border of which his commander was sitting, nor took his eyes off Iorveth. The last movement loosened the tricky ribbons on the dancer’s shirt, getting his back naked… Covered in scars, it resembled a many times mended soldier’s boot.

“Ki'rine **(Stop)**! – Iorveth rushed to the flaming circle. – What is it..?” he asked, although his fingers recognized the marks from whips and burns with medical accuracy. “For…what?!”

“Wealthy dh’oine paid the madam double for this, commander. They liked doing this, kaz’ I am handsome. The madam asked only not to damage my face. I went to work on the streets. Then I collapsed and scared away the guests in the hall, then the madam stopped. They all stopped. I was working only indoors. Too costly to heal… Neen, neen, commander, neen te agerr **(don’t cry)** , I am not worthy of your tears”, the young man was stumbling and, despite the habit of dressing up in the darkness, got confused with tying the t-shirt ribbons – the leader covered his shoulders with it before stepping back into the darkness.

“Hatte **(take)**.” Iorveth put a round box into Eniaddan’s hand – the shabby Temerian lilies on the box lid were still shining in the darkness. The scoia’taels were once lucky to meet the cart of the field medic – she didn’t care whom to heal. Everyone survived. “Like you, I can repay to all of you only with a couple of things, and the healing ointment is the most useful and affordable of them now”.

“Meas, eveigh aine… **(Thank you, beautiful light)**

“Esseath riachtanach aineas. Va fail. Meas.” **(You need a rest. Farewell. Thank you)**


	7. Stinger is bitter but honey is sweet

“Three witchers are bathing in the tubs. Suddenly a dead crow flies into the Kaer Morhen window and falls in the tub of the Witcher of the School of the Wo… Ok, Geralt, of the Cat…”

“Uh, wa-wait,” one of the she-dwarves moved the bard, who was lying blissfully sandwiched between her and her girlfriend, “so, does tha’ gonna mean the crow’d been flying already dead? Huh, did it kick the bucket on the way or whil’ flying over the witcher’s tub?”

Dandelion scratched his cheeks, blushed of the beardy kisses.

“It seems…”, Triss bubbled in her ale, “that a higher vampire communicated as usual through the crow and sent to the witchers a contract for himself, but…”

“Remained unbeaten for ages!” Geralt and Zoltan head-butted each other raising the mugs when Roche stuck his head in The Cauldron’s door looking for Ves.

Upon seeing no sign of Ves in the tavern, Vernon wanted to duck out, blending into the stone walls color with his chaperone, but no one ducks out easily from the patter of little feet:

“Here comes our Vernon!” Zoltan run to him splashing the ale with his beard to the ginger-haired legs of the she-dwarves. “Just look at him - got the victory and now sticking in the palace like a diamond in a rock troll ass! Come with us…”

Sometimes even the most experienced Temerian spies had no choice. Especially when the dwarven fist nearly glued his navel to his spine:

“Why are you all so scrawny as the squirrels after the winter sleep! That’s ok with Geralt, he has bulked up some muscles with all these potions…”

“No..t…true!” bubbled Geralt. “I am for naturarality! And, speaking straight, I am surrounded only by…natural things! Like…like this partridge!”

“That’s it, so come, Vernon and taste some game; otherwise you and that leader of yours, whom you used to chase all other Flotsam as if he were a partridge, will glue the navel to the spine… Hey, look at your red cheeks and say you haven’t just sozzled yourself somewhere else! Oh, you are to give it up, there’s nothing better than the “Cauldron” – come inside and life goes on! And put, put this cha… champignon hat of yours off, you’ll get tired of droppin’ partridge out of it later…”

At the same time, Dandelion got a refuse from the she-dwarves in a way as straight as a mine tunnel, and started twanging his lute: “Those who wear chapero-o-one, will be in love from now o-on.”

“That’s just the time. What awaits one after the battle? Right, time to love is coming…” a single dwarven tear dropped into dwarven spirit.

Triss was more generous in terms of tears, as, putting her face against Geralt’s cheek, she was crying for two – the witchers do not cry due to mutations. Roche was on the edge of tears inside his chaperone.

“Look, Vernon,” having groped somewhere around his heart, Zoltan showed a locket, “this is my lovely Eudora.”

“Ah, I see now,” Dandelion put in his word. “Last time I had no luck figuring out why you were showing your own portrait in my face then.”

“Love, my dears, is like…like …a squirrel hole, where we, as kids, were searching for the forest treasures piled up by the squirrels… Did everyone here do the same?” Zoltan made sure just to know.

Geralt nodded with understanding, Triss withheld her opinion. Roche had not yet been in the squirre's hole in his lifetime, but nodded anyway.

“Soooo… It happens sometimes that you’re putting the hand in there, and see no squirrels at all, but only the bees! Uhhhh! Other times you look inside and here there are peace, love and cones.”

“Zoltan, and yes, Geralt, it is also for you, haven't your ever thought that by intruding in other creature’s hole just to see the cones, you interfere with the nature balance?" – Triss got something to say. “We, dwarves and humans, have a full privilege to gather everything that grows in the forests. At the same time, for the squirrels to scare up the only one cone is not just a walk in a forest. And you, get lost in the portal and go to the trolls, deprived them even of that one!”

“It happens also,” Roche put the hat off and rubbed his reddened face, “that you are looking for a squirrel’s nest, and a bitter stinger meets you in the dark obscurity of the hole. And sweet honey as well.”


	8. No Longer Your Commander

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, please visit: 
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

The fact that Ves is her own commander from now on made the heart of Vernon Roche float with joy like a falcon in the sky. As well as spared him from reminding her to cover her heart with armor before the battle.

Now, despite their mutual evenness, they still had the mutual debt: the service of Ves in his detachment became the highest gratitude for Roche. As for her it was the Roche’s trust, allowing her to point at some facts of commander’s being wrong. Vernon was at the same time proud: it was “Blue Stripes”, where the first female сaptain of Maribor’s guard patrol started her rocky way up.

Roche came to the market of Vergen looking for the decent parting gift for Ves. The merchant rows were twined with blossoming bindweeds – in the mining city the rough hands of mother earth were more skilled in gems extraction than in wreath making; that’s why such fastidious beauty was cultivated and placed into hanging flower pots with chains.

Vernon was not about to strew Ves with flowers. Not only due to the fact that dead flowers made a tasteless gift; at the times of his living in the brothel he had got an eyeful of miscellaneous penny-pinchers trying to get a discount from his mother with their scraggy little bouquets or half-oren poetry about the “eyes gray as the moon lakes”. No. His mother’s eye color was steel. And the face features as chiseled as the dagger blades. Vernon got from his mother neither silver nor the steel of her look, his eyes were hazel. Like the Temerian ground after the rain. Roche stepped back from the mirror at the stall with hats and belts. He was not about to present a chaperone to Ves as well as had never measured her waist with his hands.

Roche’s choice fell on a tannery shop – and its piece of strong material for the breastplate and other military needs.

Upon ordering to prepare the piece of a deep blue color, named “pontar” for the Temerian largest river, the merchant decided to show Vernon recognition and respect. As, in addition to the piece, the Temerian also wished to buy a purse and present it to Ves - who ought to get an undeniable share of his salary.

“As for me, Sir commander, I remember your victorious return to the city after the battle day, just on the right hand at the queen. Many thanks from the whole family of mine. So, we shall live in peace and happily ever after. All this due to you and to her majesty, even though she is a woman”.

The chosen purse fell from the stall and hit the ground.

“And of course due to these stray elves. So, we live with them side by side and know – such cunning rascals they are – getting the claws into the dumpling business, taking on the weapon forge, huh, the weapons – and these are the folk, who have just yesterday lived up trees. Just on time did they climb from the trees – straight to the battle for their leader. This leader of theirs has such a creepy mug indeed – but who cares unless he is not a brothel wench…And the wenches of theirs have such sweet mugs…huh…uhhhh..”

“Did you tell everything?” Roche’s rough fingers squeezed the oily neck. “Asking you again, DID YOU TELL EVERYTHING, MAC AEP SOITH **(THE SON OF THE WHORE)** ?!”

Roche dragged the merchant’s neck back and forth across the stall as if to compare the reddened face with the laid out crimson cloth pieces.

“I do not know how you could see the queen in the city on the battle day while sitting in the cellar and hiding your ears in your cuach aep arse **(untranslatable wordplay)** ,” Vernon scratched the merchant’s ear with his words and the stubble, “but if you splash the shit of your words ever again, our Majesty with her kind woman’s heart may delay your execution – just for a moment – but you will surely stay at the stake till the sun fries your eyeballs.”

Roche loosened the grip. The purse on the floor fell at the merchant’s feet.

“Sir! Commander! What’s going on! What am I to do with your piece? It is a loss! I am to be paid! I have family, kids to feed!”

“I am not your commander. Your coins will be put on your eyes when you kick the bucket in the brothel checking who has the sweetest mug of them all."

Roche slammed the door.

Furios after the verbal duel, the Temerian missed the street corner, brushed and hit the dozen of apples placed for sale by a she-elf. Burning with shame, Vernon rushed to pick up the fruits, but the woman seemed to be not angry at all, looking at him with the eyes blurred from ageing. Knowing that the elves are notable for their longevity, Roche tried imagining sometimes how Iorveth would look like in the age when the Temerian would already leave the world. The wrinkled face surrounded with whitewashed locks differed from dh'oines' only in the pointy ears sticking out above the woolen band. When Roche put the last of runaway apples into the marble-cold palms with dark veins, the she-elf uttered:

“Meas, mac mo.” **(Thank you, sonny)**


	9. Cold is the steel, but dumplings are hot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this chapter is shorter than the usual ones, I've decided to publish 2 chapters this week instead of 1.  
> So, Chapter 9 goes for today, and Chapter 10 is to be published this Saturday, as usual.
> 
> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, please visit:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

“Our path was neither strewn with white lilies nor met with kind looks as often as we would like to, but…” Roche’s hands put the bundle on the tavern table, covered with an ornamental pattern – which was easy-to do with any artistic media and had a socially widespread occurrence, consisting predominantly of the messy asses and boobs, mostly women’s.

“May the shine of this petal light your way, where shall you meet those, against whom your weapon remains unsheathed.”

The dagger in the shape of the flower petal, glowing in the sooty darkness of the tavern, was laid to Ves’ palms.

The warrior – woman, who allowed herself not even once to break the ranks, pressed her cheek against the silver lilies on Roche’s chest.

“Knowing you, I suppose the weapon is to be sheathed, so I ask you to see about the proper armor in advance”, Vernon clumsily pointed with an arm, squeezed in a hug, to the table, where a purse with coins was lying on the piece of leather, though not the “pontar” one.

“Yes, commander.”

Vernon smiled.

He succeeded in buying the present for Ves on that day. The entrance to the blacksmith’s shop was located back in the premises, rented by handy brother and sister – to cook and sell dumplings. A sharp-witted she-dwarf, who owned the house and its two rooms, was meeting the customers of both needs and did the cashing-up.

When the last guest left, she squeezed herself to the desk in the back room and, upon looking through the list of the sold dumplings, called out loud:

“Hattori, com’ her’, it’s not balancin’.”

A youngster appeared from the smithy, wiping his freshly washed pointy-eared face.

“Yes, what's the matter?»

“Nothing matter’ - if the dumpling ‘s hot, life’s better. Look, her’, in da book, we have tha-a-t money sum. But ther’s much more her’, on ma table… That’s good for sure, but…”

“I bring you my pardon, a man with the silver chain has just paid for the dagger and the leather piece for armor crafting, I just haven’t made a record on the scroll yet.”

The she-dwarf ranged the towers of coins and moved them to the other ones built during the day.

“Perfect… Will you come a lil’ bit later after I’m don’ with countin’ the wages for all of you? Nice work, Hattori, with these daggers of yours!”

The blacksmith smiled shyly, patting the leather band on his dark hair – “elven rebel cut” grew and covered the eyes at work – and came out of the room.

“So,” the she-dwarf muttered, wrinkling nose in delight “and they said, the trade wouldn’t go with elven goods kaz’ nothing’s safer and more sound than what was in own ass found. And here I am…Huh, even the scoia’tael leader looked in the morning to buy one of these daggers! Such a pleasure…I hardly even had to try: just smelling the dumplings, he watered all these flowers on his neck with saliva! Like I said, such a pleasure to work with such folk!”


	10. Song of poleax, cry of lute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hand in hand came at night to the battle,  
> Parted ways at the dawn of the day…  
> Farewell, no time to prattle,  
> I will sing and, meanwhile, pray:  
> “In the whole world met each other  
> In the fields of the war dispute,  
> Where the poleaxes loudly smother  
> With the death silent cry of my lute.”
> 
> Verses by the fic author (Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction / Anastal_sis)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this chapter is shorter than the usual ones, I've decided to publish 2 chapters this week instead of 1.  
> So, Chapter 9 was for Thursday, and Chapter 10 - this Saturday, as usual.
> 
> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, please visit:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

_“Hand in hand came at night to the battle, parted ways at the dawn of the day…”_

Roche has never favored the idea of dragging the bards to the battlefield, but the bards, actually, appeared there at their own will, and the grimmer the cocktail of death and blood mixed, the mightier the banners of their voices were flying. 

Moreover, the ballad “Hand in hand came at night to the battle…”, which Priscilla was then playing by ear, collecting the song from the fragments of dreams, sounded much better than the couplet – the one Dandelion shouted out on the evening of the memorable discussion about the squirrels’ holes:

In the hole of Iorveth

Zoltan found Roche’s hat.

All were trying chaperone,

No one it fitted on.

Luckily, everyone was drunk. Except for Roche, who stopped seeking the truth in vine back at his first year in army and simply sipped the booze on that evening.

_Farewell, no time to prattle, I will sing and, meanwhile, pray:_

_“In the whole world met each other in the fields of the war dispute…_

Roche has never seen Iorveth hugging someone, but now two scoia’taels at once were standing in front of the Vergen palace, squeezing up against their leader like frightened little squirrels against the tree trunk. The two scoia’taels, who were the last to go away from their commander.

The dark-haired blue-eyed elf, whom Roche had always seen staying reverently close to the leader, was the first to bid farewell.

“Va fail, breme lyntwen. Meas.” **(Farewell, the noble flame of valor. I thank you)**

“Va fail, addan cared. **(Farewell, dancing warrior).** Thank you for sharing your dreams with me. May the theatres of Maribor fall conquered to your dancing feet.”

Passing near Roche, who was waiting for Iorveth at a reverent distance from other people’s farewells, the youngster bowed slowly and with grace:

“I thank you, commander. May with the peace, which bound us, a great love between our folks begin.”

“Let it be. I thank you. Va fail.”

Dragging his eyes from Vernon’s lips, Iorveth took off the glove and stroke the she-elf’s rye hair.

_Where the poleaxes loudly smother with the death silent cry of my lute._ ”

With the hurtful look, soaring like a ripped off hangnail, the girl went towards the stairs leading to the square, while Iorveth seemed to eagerly thread on a green string of his look – like a memento bead - the image of the one, who was always fighting on the right hand of him. With the soft, plump body outlines she resembled not the elves and their stately manner, cold as a morning dew and even as bow limbs, but us, dh’oine.

Tucking the wet lock from her cheek behind the slightly pointed ear, the girl looked behind:

“Te vel`s, elder.” **(See you** **later** **, brother).**

“Te vel’s, sor'ca.” **(See you, sister).**


	11. A portal for two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, please visit:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

And if for the Ves’ detachment “to be transferred” meant to go their way through forests, over mountains and across Pontar, it had the literal sense for Iorveth and Roche: by Saskia’s orders, the elf and the Temerian would step into a portal…

“Together. To arrive to Vizima together as soon as possible.”

The light from torches in the ritual place – Triss' chamber – made Iorveth’s cheek glow with a crimson reflection.

“Any experience of walking through portals?”

Three eyes winked to Triss in a negative response.

For Roche it was a first time. As well as for Iorveth, despite all the legends about the elven blood and its possibility to open all the magic doors of the world.

“Ok. So, walking through the portal – is easy! It is like opening the door to the kitchen or to the shithouse…”

“And arrive to Temeria…” the scar, fracturing the cheek like a lightning in the sky, danced emerging from under the bandana. “It’s just a Roche’s dream, isn’t it?”

“Do not worry,” – Vernon answered with sarcasm. “I am interested in many things in addition to the war for Temeria and visiting the shithouses.”

“Oh-oh, easy there. Or I have to build a magic partition inside the portal to prevent you from fighting – the problem is that not all the partitions are equally useful. Especially those dividing us horizontally. To avoid the situation at the portal exit like the one, when the lower body still belongs to Iorveth, but the upper one already wears a chaperone hat…”

Laughter thundered across the room, echoing slightly. Iorveth had the voice of velvet and warmth. Like a honey wine.

“So, boys, has everyone come to order? Excellent! At that rate we will definitely go through a portal soon. This is a portal for two – the one-person portals are subject to almost no control without the proper arcane knowledge. I cannot enter with you to the portal for two, as it seats up no more than two souls, but going to control the process from Vergen. Oh, by the way, you might already be warned, but I repeat: all the weapons left here according to the order – except for the bow, the dagger and the hunting knife around you – as well as the important belongings will be transferred following your landing. Also, thank you,” Triss pointed at the unsophisticated military stuff consisting of some crates, a sack and the cloth-wrapped sheath, “for not dragging all the property through the portal like a coachman driving a cart with the dowry.”

The Temerian and the elf exchanged the glances.

“Where will we go, if we do not land?”

“You are going to land. Teleportation runs smoothly under my control. Moreover, I feel the energy near you – which is stabilizing the portal. I suppose, the reason is the elven blood and the moon phases combination influencing Vernon’s birth… Get ready: stand closer… yes, you may stand here, it doesn't matter… alright, hold each other.”

After several seconds of confusion and not knowing what to catch at, both found themselves in a reliable and comfortable position for flying: pressing his chin to the Iorveth’s shoulder, Roche intertwined arms with the elf, grabbing his waist. Chainmail’s rings became warmer under the blue woolen belt. Iorveth locked the hands at the Temerian’s back.

“Such a beautiful energy… I definitely need to refresh my knowledge regarding the moon phased influencing the aura… Ready?”

Roche pressed his chin tighter to the shoulder covered with the scratchy shabby armor. The elf smelled like a spring of thousands nights, like the earth of thousands roads and the soldier’s herbs. Dark chestnut hair coming out under the bandana was tickling the nose. Iorveth made one more deep breath inhaling the aroma of wormwood and the rose oil Roche used as an after-shave.

“Yed.”

“Yes.”

“Great, then… Let the magic abyss open wide! Let the blue flame dance!”


	12. Close your eyes and think of Temeria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, also glad to see you at:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

Roche was definitely aware of the fact that coming through the portal is a tricky matter and even asked Geralt how the process usually went, beforehand:

“I do not know, just close my eyes to see nothing passing by. Come to think of that, I hate portals, they make my stomach upset.”

Vernon tried to close his eyes and think of Temeria - so horrified he was feeling. And not he alone – Iorveth’s heart seemed to hammer in their heads like the refugees at the closed fortress gates. At the same time, he wanted this flight to last forever. The elf grabbed a hold of Roche so tightly that the air went through his lungs like the daggers. The Temerian embraced the leaf, tattooed at the elf’s ear, with his opened lips. But the flight had its end.

“Vernon, Vernon…Wake up! What the hell…”

Semi-conscious, Roche felt the cool breeze, sounding water and thin fingers, frozen from the flight through nothingness – sweeping sand from his face and hair. The Temerian opened the eyes with difficulty.

“At last!” upon checking that Vernon, who grabbed the extended hand, had his feet on the ground, Iorveth pulled on the glove. “Never in my life had I imagined to get through such thing, but get in touch with all these fighters for free Temeria once and…”

“Y..you you told that did…did not know any other fighters for free Temeria before me.” Roche succeeded in his third attempt to fasten the sheath on his belt with the trembling hands: while the Temerian was coming to consciousness on the shore of the Viziman lake, the elf dragged all their belongings, safely delivered through the baggage portal, under the nearest pine tree.

“Oh, yeah, didn’t know. You are the first fighter for free Temeria, whom I…”

“HERE THEY ARE! DEAR SIRS, SIRS, LANDED AT LAST, BROTHERS!”

It was unclear at first, what the kind of kinship both of them had to a mustached soldier in the Viziman uniform – he was running towards them and stamping the grass flat. 

“Huuuh, we were expecting you at the other side of the woods. An urgent message came – that after a blue flame in the skies you would fall to us, sir Roche, you and your noble captive Yourveth.”

Iorveth corrected no one. Simply covered his one and the only eye with a palm.

“I bring you my pardon, I didn’t report to you in a due form. Pugiliy Ubeykobylka, the patrol commander of all local, pardon, of all Viziman forests, at your order.”

Apparently, the sand still made itself feel in the mouth after the fall: Vernon and Iorveth coughed chokingly.

“Excuse me, whom you are guarding the forest from?” the elf stopped coughing, “it tends to perfectly guard itself.”

“Not the forest. We are to guard you. From yourself.”

Roche made a decision to restore the bridge of subordination and ordered the patrol commander to escort them to the new, constant and the last place of Iorveth’s living, while the Pugiliy’s soldiers were to deliver the belongings to the elf’s house in the forest and then arrive at the house of Temerian at the Viziman outskirts.

A dozen steps back from the patrol, the elf, chained with no more than the promise to keep his head for good conduct, looked at the Vernon following him:

“Honestly speaking, I have the one who is guarding me from myself. And, if you haven’t noticed yet, you lost your chaperone during the portal flight.”


	13. Yours now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, please visit Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction on Instagram:
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

“Thank you, Pugiliy, you can go now, I will escort Iorveth further myself.” Roche stopped at the border of the area, which had been buried in the forest lowlands, where you could see a single-story cottage of pine logs.

Pugiliy, who had always shown diligence in following the orders, was especially eager to leave then – the places were wild, one couldn’t even see the huntsman there – only the house left. Honestly, who would ever need that huntsman: the area of the woods belonged to Vizima only, as word had it, due to the possibility to reach the swamps through that wilderness… If one knows, how… Nobody usually walks in there – only in the huntsman’s lifetime the path was leading there from the small door hidden in the city wall…

The house had even its own well, which you could see behind the slightly skewed fence: after the last huntsman had passed away, the house was bought and improved by the merchant tired from the city hustle-bustle. As it turned out later, it was not only the hustle-bustle, which made the merchant tired, but the debts unpaid to the treasury. The house became a payment for the debt and had remained empty since the last summer. On his way to the reliable and simple door with the brass ring, Iorveth was constantly turning around and looking back as if he tried to read some messages written in the endless stream of forest wind. Roche got a pouch with a key, earlier received from the guard, from his belt purse and, upon unclenching the elf’s thin fingers, put it on his palm.

You could feel the graceful and strong grasp of Iorveth’s hand even through the glove.

“Take it. It’s yours now.”

The elf made a point of using one of his typical comments spared for Vernon at once:

“I would gladly follow the dh’oine’s tradition to let a cat into the house first, but why do I need the cat If I have a first class Temerian spy.”

Vernon blushed after the long way in the end of the hard day.

“The owner first, then the guests.”

The joints in the lock cracked. The door creaked welcomingly.

“So, do you want to be my very welcome guest?”

The dust made Roche cough as he was thinking about the dimension, where his chaperone had been lonely flittering at the moment. He started observing the furniture.

The house was repossessed to the treasury together with its simple furnishings – after its building the merchant brought there together the furniture from his city apartments – the shabby yet high-quality items. Two solid chairs with their upholstery discolored to gray; quite a big bed frame with a lumpy rolled up mattress. A potbelly table lacking some drawers like a mouth lacks the teeth – some damp trade books were lying there. A couple of lanterns in the shape of dancing dryads – long time ago, before the pogroms, elven goods of “forest style” had been in fashion. Now, in the upcoming times of the promised equality, the fashion for mysterious aesthetics of unknown folks was waking up again. The windows were covered with the large cloth pieces, and the forest shadows were moving behind them. Some cabinets and bedside-tables were piled in the corner like the cubes of sweets cut into dice on the market. A narrow cabinet decorated with a winding pattern of lilies opened its carved doors to the right of the entrance.

Iorveth rolled up his bandana as if it stopped him from seeing, and touched the stones of a small fireplace. Roche’s heart clenched.

“Look, Vernon, there is another room here!”

The elf stood still shyly on the threshold. The room was half, if not the third of the previous room size and had grotesque furnishings. A cold white painted stove, where the former owner had no chance to lit a fire. Long wooden shelves lying unfixed and scattered on the floor like children’s wooden swords after the game. Quite a spacious bath tub – where the dented kitchen utensils and mismatching dinnerware from different sets were piled. A shabby arm-chair with the Temerian white and blue striped upholstery was squeezed into the center of all that splendor.

The elf took his bandana off at last and, after flopping down in a chair, was fidgeting with it as he was looking around. His sap-green eye was shining. Roche didn’t want to embarrass him with gazing at the scar, that’s why he was meeting the elf’s eye and then, forcing himself to stop gazing, observed the room in details. The skylight window was not shut, and Roche noticed how the sun was highlighting tender chestnut color of locks - uneven and damp after the long way on the hot day, they were falling on the elf's neck-piece.

“Estimate with the sight of an experienced scoia’tael shooter, what you are lacking to live here, especially for a start. There must be some quills and blank scrolls in the house, but I will leave here mine – to convey your wishes to the guard. He will visit you every third day.”

“And you?”

“And I will do what you write.”

Iorveth touched Vernon with the blade of his look and said:

“Yed. Meas.” **(Yes. Thank you).**


	14. All are free to go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this chapter is shorter than the usual ones, I've decided to publish 2 chapters this week instead of 1.  
> So, Chapter 14 is for Thursday, and Chapter 15 - this Saturday, as usual.
> 
> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, please visit Instagram Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

“So, Pugiliy, the order is the following… ” Roche pressed a mark - no more than a blood drop - on the map. “To show respect towards the captu...ahem, towards Iorveth. Entering his land area is allowed only according to the previously agreed schedule. No one enters his house, especially by force. With the cases, when its owner's life is in danger, as the only exception. Is everything clear and noted?”

“Yes, sir! Will comply.”

“Then… All the requests to purchase anything he lacks in the house should be send to me in a written form. In case of any matters, especially of the urgent ones or those regarding the Iorveth’s health, I shall be immediately informed at any time of the day or night.”

“Will comply.”

“Thank you. You are all free to go.”

Dust from the marching steps of the soldiers’ boots settled on the stairs. Roche scratched thoughtfully the mark with the Iorveth’s name on the map – the ink put down deep roots in the paper. The sunset above the Viziman forest was spreading its crimson coat, stitched with the foam whips rising from the lost forest settlements, across the skies. The Temerian closed the eyes.


	15. Once and always

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction instagram:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

If one were afraid to be right in a prediction that the restless Scoia’tael leader (as it is known, once a restless leader, always a restless leader) would burn the “donated-by-the-queen-herself” house as well as draw the portal on the floor with his magic elven blood – where the Scoia’taels with knives would jump from and run to pillage the nearby village… Then… Vernon Roche would certainly wouldn't be that one. 

The Temerian knew that among all the scheming and cobweb – on their thin threads the spies were balancing – it was the trust, which was his the most expensive, complicated and effective weapon.

Roche trusted the elf. And was right.

Iorveth still didn’t send any wish list when the guard came the day after. Vernon tried to break the pattern of bare reports “Everything is in accordance with the order” with the delicately asked questions – the answers to them made it obvious that the elf was setting up his peaceful home.

Vernon would never break the previously established agreement and drop in unannounced. Taking into consideration that the Temerian ought to turn up in an archive the day after their arrival to Vizima, Roche decided to see the elf when the documents for their collaboration work would be in his possession. Moreover, it was just the time to set up Vernon’s own cozy home – strange though it might sound to him! 

The Temerian could choose from some variants of residence, and his choice fell on a small house in the Trade Quarter. One should go up the stone-block pavement to reach its entrance. A solid door with floral carving lead upstairs, to two spacious living rooms. Warehouses and workshops occupied traditionally the first floor of every house on this street. Business-friendly atmosphere in this part of the quarter calmed down the mind, while the light tone of the walls pleased the eye, tired from the gray military routine.

The only house, which Roche had in his longest possession, remained in Flotsam. One would be right to say that Vernon didn’t miss it. Staying on its second floor, on the Temerian border, and digging into the outlines of other people's lives on the map, the spy found himself on the powder keg: downstairs something was constantly dinging, falling and breaking followed by the cascade of top-quality obscene words collected throughout the long (or short, it depends on luck) soldier’s life. The Blue Stripes made many sacrifices for their commander, but the idea to sacrifice their own boozing had never flashed in their badass mind. As usual, it was Ves, who made reason with them all – till the moment she would wish to relax and throw some knives.

New alder furnishings with floral carvings on the doors met Roche in his new house. Woody aroma wrapped his armor lying on the shelf – the doublet with chain mail insets. Vernon ran his hand over the empty bookshelf – any information read lies either in the spy’s head or in the grave. Things will be different from now on: the scrolls and maps with elven writings, getting fragile with time, were laid on the comfortable working table. Windows opened their stained-glass eyes wide under the Roche’s hands. The wind from forests, which were looking silently to the skies with their lakes, ran its cold fingers through his harsh and even as the marching militia rows hair of a color of rye.

Vernon tore off the silver chain, which was lying on his shoulders and burning them with cold silence.


	16. Lucky you are today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction instagram:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

“Are you always tarting yourself up this way before going to forest?” upon chewing an apple, Iorveth shot an entrance area, which separated him from Vernon, with its seeds.

“Do not worry, I am definitely not going to impress you with my beauty.”

“That’s a pity,” the elf stretched the leg and swept up the seeds. “I’ve just finished my wish list regarding what I want the Temerian intelligence officer to wear during his next visit. Unfortunately, there are only two variants of it: in a chaperone or without it.”

Iorveth was standing barefoot at the door. A tattooed branch, twining round the ankle and the foot with its leaves, was seen under the faded leg of the pants with the intricate pattern.

Roche moved his shoulders under a new linen malachite green shirt and took off the hood a woolen coat.

Yesterday, after shaking off the archive dust and leaving behind the chains, which the most ancient tomes were fastened to the storage shelves with, Vernon strolled to the tailor’s shop – he had noted it that morning. The Temerian got a bit tired of the peaceful blue and cold white “national” colors, prevailing in his though not so varied wardrobe.

The shop was managed by a married couple: dh’oine woman and a male elf.

“What would I like?... Something practical, as I need to go to the forest often…in my line of work.”

“I see. Then I invite you to look at the fabrics and models. As for you, mo geatwe **(my dear, my precious)** , please, measure the sir for clothes.”

Vernon looked in the mirror, while the elf in an elegant crimson blouse was fluttering around with a measure tape in his crafty hands. The Temerian felt awkward without his armor. He will surely order a leather breastplate at an armorer’s shop, but the reinforced gambeson will have another color…

“Green like a pine tree, for example? It’s as peaceful as the colors you prefer now, and at the same time something new, isn’t it? Or a saffron one – it matches awesomely with your eye color… Or maybe a vivid splash of burgundy?” the tailor lady (who was also a co-owner) was turning the fabrics samples before Vernon like the sheets of a magic book.

“Yes… And a chaperone, please.”

“I can offer you a coat with a hood, as a variant. My dear lady, show the sir a shirt and the coat, which…” the tailor smiled “we have in stock, but not every day! Though so lucky you are today!”

The shirt was comfortable, made of a durable fabric and had a pattern in a shape of forest beast paws on the chest. The warm coat had the color of the fallen fir needles and was scratchy like everything wild and alive. Roche ran through the hair. The Temerian had never been in the habit of diving into his own reflection in the mirror – he felt simply that the strong lean body was serving as his armor throughout his life, in which to that day he had never felt so…handsome.


	17. Feel no pity at all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction instagram:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

“I’ndiaidn siett. Only after you.”   
  
“Do not worry, I know the Elder Speech. Not fluently, but definitely learned a substantial part of its vocabulary chasing after you.”   
  
Roche stepped across the threshold. Iorveth took the half of the doorway space with his hands pretentiously up and his tailbone placed against the door frame.   
  
“I can take off my shirt to wave it like a white flag. Like you used your chaperone to wave Vergen farewell.”   
  
One foot in the Iorveth’s house, Roche touched the elf with his hand and the folds of his clothes. Warm, lean and tough like never-dying grass blades growing along the roads. The witchingly green eye pierced through the consciousness of the Temerian. Roche had never seen Iorveth without his armor. A pale chest heaved in the nets of the loosened shirt laces, below the sun-tanned, blushed like the sea sunset, neck. His scar was glinting in the sun – the elf seemed to use the ointment right before that – and the longer both of them were standing in the sun, the stronger the healing herbal aroma was dancing up in the Vernon’s head.   
  
“You can undress as much as you wish and wave everything you wish as many times.” Roche made the second step across the threshold.   
  
Yet on his way to the entrance, the Temerian noticed a path trampled down among the forest herbs, which came out like the soldiers from the ambush after the previous owner had gone. It led to the fence behind the house, where a sap green quilted gambeson and a blood-red doublet were drying in the sun together with the new rough towels and the mattress found on the day of their arrival.   
  
For the last two days Iorveth hadn’t started reclaiming the lands back from the forest, although the dust ruled in the house no more. Cloth pieces, torn from the windows, were rolled on the floor like the hide of the defeated cockatrice. The furniture looked at the world with its doors wide open – the elf poked around every cabinet and put everything lying there broken, crumpled and piled to good use. The written off merchant’s curtain served perfectly as a door mat. There was a jar of tallow on the chair covered with a piece of cloth – to grease the chainmail lying spread on the table. The bed was made with the camp mattress and a brightly-colored blanket – beautiful despite a messy moth-eaten fringe. The elven bow was lying on the bed with the arrows sleeping by its side. The fireplace was not lit yet, but it was warm inside. A trade book lied open on a bedside table with its empty pages pressed by a small wooden chipped casket with charcoals. For many years it was his first, if not the only bedside table. There was a mirror near the book – like the dryad-shaped lanterns it belonged to the forgotten elven fashion though rising up again. Female figurines with the hair like the weeping willow branches were hugging the mirror’s frame.   
  
Something thudded behind the back – the Temerian turned around: a knife fell to his feet. Iorveth pulled occasionally a towel with the even rows of mismatching cups, plates, jugs and cooking utensils, when he was placing a clay bowl full of cloth pieces soaked in the herbal ointment on the stove.  
  
Roche gave the knife back to the elf with its handle forward and nodded looking at the bowl:   
  
“Do you have all you need for the compresses? I can visit the doctor at the city.”   
  
“No. I mean, yes, everything I need, you don’t have to.” – The corners of his mouth lowered like a hanging bridge above the abyss. “Anyway, don’t pity me.”   
  
A golden-green pupil surrounded by the gentle darkness of fluffy eyelashes moistened. His second eye, looking like an entrance to the cave sealed by the avalanche, remained silent. Black birds of the eye-lashes will never return to the border of the deadburned eye-lids. A path of the scar led to the eye-socket cave along the breakage of the sharp cheekbone. It was spilt across the cheek like boiling red wine. Roche never averted his eyes from the path of the scar.   
  
“I was not at all going to pity you. I have another reason to come.”


	18. Why is the undying love dead?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction instagram:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/
> 
> P.S. In the Russian version I used the local pop song to translate in Elven language and make Iorveth sing, and for the English one I think Lady Gaga's Bad romance sounds perfectly in Elder Speech.

The elf’s reaction to the proposal to become a historian of some kind offered hope. That’s why Roche was in high spirits approaching the Iorveth’s house. A new, midnight-blue chaperone was ready to be turned into a perfect laughingstock by the elf, whose jokes Roche had been missing for the last two days like the citizen would miss the rain. On the one hand, the raindrops were cold, unexpected and messing with the routine, and at the same time there was something refreshing and tender in them, something that cheered up and washed away the dust from the soul.

Iorveth couldn’t surely have done without some sardonic jokes being shot into the Vernon’s heart – however, they ricocheted back off as usual and filled the space in the room.

“May I write this in Elder Speech? To make the Temerian spy busy with something on the days when he is not hanging around pleading my hut to turn its front to the forest and the hut’s butt - to him.”

“You may write in any language you want to. And don’t worry – I have plenty of things to be busy with. As I had on a couple of thousand rainy, shivery nights, when I had been chasing the scoia’taels through the forests and villages, where you had never been found.

The house met Roche with its look of dark sockets of windows – the lights, which Vernon had at first mistook for the elven lanterns, turned out to be the farewell glows of the sunset. Nobody met him at the doorway, his knock remained unanswered.

Raising the cloud of dust with his steps, the Temerian pushed the door. Unlocked.

«Iorveth!»

The house owner was at home. But didn’t answer – he was sitting at the table, putting his folded hands under the head with tangled, sweaty hair bounded by the leather band he usually had fastened his crimson bandana with. The only candle was burning in front of the elf, and its flame was reflected from the numerous little bottles tossed around the table. The liquid from one of them was spilt on the table making its way of drops to the candle-holder plate.

Grasping Iorveth’s shoulder, Roche sniffed. Mother of the Mahakam gods, the strongest dwarven spirit. Mahakam mead. In addition to the Temerian rye and beer wish-wash “Viziman champion”. Things couldn’t do without the cordial, known as the “Grandma’s”. Although due to its strength it’d better be named “Horse kick».

Dragonbreathing at Vernon, who felt a dozen sorts of vodka and no appetizer in the air, the elf flooded his borders of sense and attempted to pass out right at the table with his face dropped on the wooden surface. The Temerian prevented it, holding his shoulders – the orange-blossom shirt, damp from the spots of beer and sweat, slipped down revealing tender skin with the green leaves under the Roche’s fingers.

Taking his hand off carefully, the spy scratched his head. Bloede arse, what was going on here? What might we all do?

Every time the destiny made them meet again, the elf was stone cold sober. And as sharp-tongued as the stone flake. As for Vergen, the scoia’tael commander had been reserved as well – when the elves had been passing round the vine bottle the evening after the victory, Iorveth had been sitting in the shade of trees at some distance from the fire. Fireflies of camp light were dancing in his eye, but all the elves knew – just one commander’s word, and all the fun would be rolled up like the camp blanket, and the detachment would hit the road.

Now, when the scoia’tael has opened his eye for a moment, one could see emptiness dancing there in the net of broken blood vessels. Roche took the first available cloth – the elven waist-belt, used to be rough and faded, it became soft after the homewashing – and placed it under the Iorveth’s head.

Luckily, Vernon had a bottle of “Wives’ tears” in his waist bag – the potion to remove drunkenness. The spy had always carried it in case of important matters when sober head meant the head kept on his shoulders.

“So, how many drops do u need, huh?” Roche glanced at the scrawny figure dreaming at the table and dropped slightly less than his own usual draught. “Hirgi **(Drink)**.”

Feeling for the glass brim, soft lips rubbed the Temerian’s hand a couple of times.

The elf hiccupped, being brought to life. The matter was that the potion had an instant and painless effect only on the witchers. All the rest – never mind the race – had to go through some phases. Pleasant and also some less enjoyable.

The first one began. Exuberance of high spirits.

After some attempts to aim his look at Vernon, Iorveth seemed to recognize the Temerian as his own acquaintance. And not as the only one person.

“Uh-oh…Why have both of you come? Hey, you…” the elf shook his finger somewhere on Roche’s left “so, you’d better get to know that he is the only…” his finger pointed at the silver lilies on the spy’s chest “the only one who can come to my house! He is the only one I have! Is it clear?”

Upon confirming that everything was clear, Roche held out his hands like a bridge thrown over the abyss – Iorveth tried to stand up. It took him five attempts to succeed, though Vernon had no luck in persuading the elf that after standing up he ought to lie down.

“Oh, no, no, no! We shall dance and sing now!”

Iorveth started dancing all alone. Upon ambling across the room with his arms held out like a carrying pole, he reached the nearest door frame, hugged the door post with his body and started pulling down a dirty boot while singing during the whole process:

“ _Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh_

_Minne aep arse_

_Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh_

_Minne aep arse_

_Aé wett do minne aep arse…_ ”

“Oh-oh-oh, bad romance… I want your bad romance…” Roche translated the words into Common and shivered. Not the least because that summer 1267 “Bad romance” had been played in every corner of Temeria. During the spy raids to the city someone in the Blue Stripes had been constantly catching that song and brought it to their headquarters like the dog brought the burdocks on its tail. The song let no one go like the chronic hangover and was catchy like the clap some sailors got in the harbor. And we ought to give it a credit – the song was even more effective in uniting the races than the Queen Saskia’s speeches – all folks had their own translations of it. Roche hesitated whether the sophisticated elves listened to the songs like that and then he saw that their folk were no strangers to the simple-hearted things dh’oine liked so much.

The art of dance wasn’t Vernon’s strongest side – he knew some basic moves useful at the king’s banquets, but the current circumstances required actions. Without asking himself “What is preventing me from becoming a good dancer?” Roche started drawing the elf’s attention with his flowing motions to make him go to bed and not to the bath tub in the kitchen – he had already aimed his eye there.

Hooking their arms like two inseparable chain mail rings, Iorveth dragged the Temerian to the table. The next phase began: “Answer now or regret later”. Upon plonking onto the chair and raising his arms to Vernon and to the skies, Iorveth fidgeted his elbow in a vodka puddle and began:

“Te va…te va dice **(Tell me)**... Fath eveigh minne est marbh ?..”

“Why…why is the undying love…dead?” the wrinkles on the Roche’s forehead made a V formation like two small armies. However, the elf didn’t expect his answer and started rubbing his face with a shirt sleeve. His left eye was the only one filled with tears, but the elf was stubbornly putting the cloth also to his empty numb eye socket.

“Mo laest afealle ys caomh le lah`h… **(The heart is falling down like a stone)** ” Iorveth banged his fist on the table – that made the waning candle flame shiver, stood up with a push and, staggering, went to bed cursing on the way “A d'yaebl aep arse! Cwelle! Hel'cwelle a soithe! **(To the devil’s ass! Kill! Kill the scumbags!** )”

“The heart is falling down like the stone…What are you talking about? Whom do you want to kill?”

Roche understood nothing but knew: the curses were not the only one thing the elf could start spitting out, thus, with the eyes fixed on Iorveth’s figure on the bed, he ran to the kitchen to bring him the first available bowl.

The elf stretched out on the bed grunting in a way as if each move caused him unbearable pain. During Roche’s years in army “Wives’ tears” had saved lives of many recruits falling to the vodka seas, but such reaction was something new to him.

Upon settling in a sag on the mattress, Iorveth started to cry. With all his body shaking with the sobs silent and wild like the beast in chains. Roche moved his chair to the bed, held out his hand, touched the fingers wet with tears and whispered in Elder Speech calling the elf from nothingness:

“Iorveth… Fath te agerr? Que’ss aen? **(Why are you crying? What has happened?)** ”

A forest bird sounded off the day and honored the night coming in the twilight silence. The last phase began – merciful sleep of relief.

In the fading daylight the elf’s magically green eye seemed to be covered with a swamp mud. Staring somewhere above the ceiling, all the tree crowns and all the skies, Iorveth uttered:

“Cwelle. Bloede dh’oine. Mo leede, mo minne dh’oine. Cwellan. Se est marbh.”

“Kill…They killed. Bloody dh’oine. My…my love...lover? She? My beloved dh’oine. Was killed. He? He is dead.”


	19. Knowing that you can’t hear me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I've decided to translate and publish 2 chapters of my fic as a present to the readers for the upcoming St. Valentine's day! :) One for today, and another - for the Saturday.
> 
> If you'd like to see the special updates and illustrations, I am glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_fiction Instagram.
> 
> Thank you!

Roche opened his eyes when soldiers’ boots stomped on the stairs. He knew that the guards ought to knock first, and yet he rushed to freshen up – the last night had been hard. Vernon had been watching at Iorveth’s bedside till the morning even when the elf had long sunk into the deep sleep. The Temerian left only at dawn’s early light, supposing that the elf wouldn’t like him to see the morning after condition as the potion effect would wear off soon. Upon reaching the nearest guard patrol, the spy ordered to shift the date and time of check to the earlier ones with the corresponding report as well.

Being alone then, Roche finally shucked off his cloak, rumpled and darkened from dew at the bottom.

That night the Temerian had been keeping hold of the elf’s hand warming it with his fingers.

But first he had reached the candle holding plate with his free hand and put out its flame dancing the last waning dance in the dangerous proximity to the vodka drops.

Being as careful as possible, Vernon had pulled off the Iorveth’s boots one by one and covered him with a blanket. Still in his sleep, the elf had snuggled up to his warm hand at once. The headband had slipped down, pinching the forehead, but as soon as Roche had tried to remove the tight leather band, Iorveth had started tossing and turning as if the Temerian had dared to touch something important and precious.

When Vernon’s back had tensed up as the сhair seat had turned out to be harder than it had seemed, he had slipped to the floor, pressing his forehead to the bedside. Listening to the elf’s relaxed breath, the Temerian had closed his eyes.

Roche had woken up lying on the floor with his face in the – luckily empty – bowl; Iorveth had untied the knot of their fingers in his sleep and turned over in the bed.

Upon rubbing his tensed body spread in front of the bed, Roche had slipped into the kitchen and lit the “dryad” lantern, which had been fastened to the wall with the special hook by the careful house owner. Making sure that Iorveth hadn't been disturbed, Roche had taken his chaperone off, wrapped its cloth around the vodka bottles to bring and leave them near the broken crate, apparently used to put the rubbish to. The bucket near the stove had enough water to fill a mug to drink and wash the hands. The Temerian hadn’t looked into the stove to avoid making nose, though found some slices of bread and dried meat wrapped into a towel on one of the shelves.

The fire inside the lantern didn’t go out at once, resisting to the breath of Roche’s lips. Upon leaving water and food at the bedside and knowing that Iorveth couldn’t hear him, Vernon whispered:

“Me te aeminne.” **(I love you)**

The door was closed behind the Temerian. The elf gave a sob.


	20. Everything I need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, this's turned out to be my little present to you on the upcoming st. Valentine's day :3
> 
> If you'd like to see the arts to the current and all other chapters, glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_fiction Instagram.

Bloody insomnia. Bad dreams.

Roche forced his eyes open: somebody was knocking at the door, and it wasn’t a dream. Upon flinging his cloak over his home shirt, the Temerian moved the secret door latch hidden in the door frame panel and looked at the guest. He saw the familiar freckled face.

“Come in.”

The door bolt clinked.

The girl had a letter held with a string.

“He told nothing, I suppose?"

“He told: “I have already written everything I need.”

After letting the guard go, Roche unfolded the letter. Is he mocking at him? “I kindly ask to bring me ink, lavender seeds, onion, valeriana flowers…”

Iorveth’s handwriting was fast as if it was flying, and the first letters of all the required items listed in a column, were written with an especially elegant and gorgeous calligraphy:

Ink

Lavender seeds

Onion

Valeriana flowers

Echinops roots

Yarn

Ointment for joints

Utensils

Tobacco

Oat

Oil for steel tools

I LOVE YOU TOO.


	21. Daggers and the dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction instagram:
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

Being short of his breath after the fast running, Vernon pushed his chaperone onto the back of his head, and the wind brushed his hair like a cold comb. The female guard had brought the letter just after the evening patrol. Despite Vernon’s efforts to hurry up, he failed to find Iorveth at home. Though he truly succeeded in having an absolute obsession with the elf! And how – on his way there he heard the wind dinging in his ears like the Iorveth’s flute singing somewhere in the woods.

Roche felt the stream of the fresh-baked honey bread. If he was baking buns, great, it meant he was alive. The fireplace was unlit, but the house was full of warmth. The Temerian’s thought rushed to run and look for Iorveth, but he stopped in fear to miss him again. Moreover, even for a couple of the days passed, the elf had become a true master of the nearby woods and knew them better than any spy. Even if the spy was the most experienced one in the whole Temeria.

Upon draping the doublet over the chair and kicking off the boots, Vernon sat on the very edge of the bed – his bloede arse saw enough hard furniture – and drummed his fingers on the merchant’s mattress, which was dried after all the dampness of the empty house and ready to be slept on. Roche occasionally touched the pillow and, plaсing it back, felt the gentle, as a grass blade in the wind, herbal aroma rising from the clean, lily – white pillow case. The bread, herbs and warmth were cradling him to sleep.

***

“If you’ve decided to put a sword between us in the bed as was the will of the Lebioda the Prophet, it is in vain: I am not as innocent as you think.”

The military habit made Vernon not to give up a weapon even in his sleep. However, upon finding a way back from the dream to the real life, he didn’t let his hand touch the falchion hilt.

“I don’t think at all…” the Temerian began to talk. Not true. Because he didn’t let the thoughts about Iorveth go. Sometimes, as it seemed to him, even in his sleep.

“Not true. You’ll tell me that you’ve come here to bring me seeds and hunting knife, or something like these.”

“That’s not the exact thing you need - judging by how you had previously spat the apple seeds at the ground between us, and that only once I saw you without your knife ever since the times my chase for you has begun.”

The elf, tense as a bowstring, stood still on the threshold. He was wearing his forest clothes again, but had neither chain mail nor the bow behind his back. The hunting knife could still be seen in the case fastened to the leather breast plate. The flute was tucked behind the waist-band, and Roche exhaled with relief – the elven melodies played in his brain turned out to be real.

“So, what do you think I need?” Iorveth stepped forward. The flute touched the table with a slight clink.

Mesmerized with the flying movement of the fingers, which were untying the belt with the red fringe, Roche needed some time to answer:

“You’ve already written everything you need.”

Taking off both the quilted sleeveless armor and the crimson robe, the elf draped them over the Temerian’s clothes on the chair, took the lantern and knelt before the fireplace. The last breath of the smouldering embers made the kindling-wood burn. The time had scratched the paint on the “dryad’s” green body, and then the fire looked through the abrasions on the glass. Like burning blood.

The glows were trembling in the Iorveth’s eyes like the swamp fires.

“Wrote, but not said. And what about you? Just going to use your cold steel to cool down the bed?”

The falchion fell to the elf’s bare feet – it’s much easier to take off the boots when you’re sober.

The scoia’tael took the boots and gave them a shake:

“See, only dust inside. No daggers. I have no daggers against you. Only the dust remained.”

Roche moved, making enough space for the elf, who turned his back.

“No, stay at your side of the bed. It’s big enough for two, and don’t say that you hadn’t thought about it as soon as you had opened the door of our house.”

Vernon remained silent. He felt his hands becoming cold as ice, but, lying in his arms, Iorveth was the fire. The body of the Temerian embraced the elf like the ceramic lantern embraces the fire. Roche’s heart was then beating somewhere between the elf’s shoulder blades. Only then Vernon noticed that the grasses, stitched on the Iorveth’s shirt, were intertwining peculiarly, thus making a fern patten.

“Te dice mo sceal. **(I will tell you my story)** ”


	22. Lilac lilies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, here we go back in the past... 
> 
> And I thank you - deeply and sincerely - for being with me and my OCs on the way of this long journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction instagram:
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

Aenerewel was comparing the amount of herb bundles with the notes received from Katharina the innkeeper. So many things to do yet. To sell the stock of the herbs to the tavern. To bring the infusions and the ointments to the brothel and ask the seamstress, who had been working there, for a piece of advice on sewing the baby’s undershirt – the craftswoman had promised to show it in exchange for the aid. Aenerewel and Athair had already borrowed a cradle from the neighbors, but, even with the skillful fingers, both of them had never had enough time to sew the baby's clothes.

“I will stitch ferns on the front and at the both sides…So, what’ve I just said? It goes for the pharmacy. And spare me Lara Dorren from the nagging of this rascal behind the counter.”

The way how the pharmacist had been finding more and more faults in the she-elf’s work was truly unenviable – fresh herbs turned out to be not fresh enough, while dry ones – rather too dry, aep arse with him.

***

“Where is Betet by the way? Haven’t seen her today.”

Though it was not a peak – hour, Aenerewel still had no word with the she-elf, whom the customers called Bettina in a common way.

Searching through the torn scrolls of fabric and the paper bits, the seamstress looked up at the healer with the dark eyes wide from astonishment, wide as the hole in the spring ice.

“So, don’t you know?.. Holy Melitele…”

“Don’t know what? Tell me as it is. I don’t think we need Melitele’s help with it.”

“Betet does definitely not need it. She is dead.”

“What? How? When?” each push from the inside became a new question shooting from the Aenerewel’s lips. The baby calmed down only when the craftswoman started telling a story in details and placed a rolled dress with a hole burnt in it under the she-elf’s back like a pillow.

“Hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, of course, but the girls said that on that evening the madam had got an order for a she-elf. A private party of some kind, made by nobility, and there had been even no need for… you know what… she just had to dance. Oh, how our Betet danced!"

You just needed to see how Betet danced, when she was not restraint by the greasy dens and barracks backstreets! Just needed.

“She even required neither fancy clothes nor those sugar curls… Was told to come as she was, in a usual elven dress…"

“Who told?”

“A guy came. In an armor shining like a cat ass freshly-cleaned. And the cloak… If only I could get such fabric – would make such crimson curtains and chair covers – they are constantly being burnt through…”

“Wait, the armor… and a crimson cloak? You suppose it was a Flaming Rose knight, who had come to the brothel in broad daylight to pick a dancer for a banquet? I think a famous dancing troupe is invited for such purpose, isn’t it?”

Although the chastity was one of the Order’s virtues, the knight’s visit to the brothel would have never struck the healer as odd. If the innocence exists, it is to be found far from the places where it is usually looked for.

«It was his mission of a great importance – to clean our hearts…” the seamstress raised a pierced scarlet needle cushion “from the filth of the world where we live our humble lives. As for the dancing troupes, they sing more about the needs of church nowadays, and who does ever need to dance in the temple?”

The craftswoman gave Aenerewel a sewing pattern for the baby’s undershirt and went on:

“He paid to madam in advance, and the rest of the sum – the one Betet would have brought – would be enough to сhange the furniture's upholstery and cure the syphilis, but it was the grave that turned out to be the most expensive.”

In the early morning hour, when the last clients were doing up their pants and turning their purses upside down, an undertaker appeared in the doorway. He asked for no services - only to be paid for his own.

One of the poor fishermen caught a body while trying his luck near the sewers. The body had neither soul nor money at its disposal.

“And you know… I didn’t see it, but it was a madam who did…” The seamstress moved closer to the healer’s ear making her instinctively cover the belly with the palms. “They said a dress had been cut all over, as well as the body. And the face… Our girl was told only by her lilac skirt.”

The brothel, Aenerewel had been paying her medical visits to, was called “Lilac lily”. All the girls serving there wore the costumes of the same color. That evening was no exception for Betet. Honestly speaking, those silky, embroidered, ankle-length elven dresses were just a myth. The pants made of solid fabric with a floral pattern, meeting every taste, had long become common to wear for hunting in the forests and living in the cities. But Bettina had some dresses done to please the fantasies of the clients asking her to play the part of a glamorous sorceress or a shepherd girl with a flute. It was one of those dresses she had been wearing when the soaked heavy skirt slowed the body floating along the stinky river.

The undertaker tried to make the madam pay through her nose for the “improvement of the corpse damaged by the drowners and other beasts found in the city” required in such cases.

“Though the madam says it wasn’t the drowner. Those just bite off some fingers with shiny things or a leg, if they are hungry and there are no rats around, but to damage with the claws…”

“Who did it then? And where did you bury her?”

“Naturally – one who paid is the one who killed. And to bury…No, we didn’t bury her. Place in the ground is too expensive. The madam told to burn her. The ash was scattered.”


	23. Flaming roses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction instagram:
> 
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

Upon returning, the healer saw that Athair had already come home. Vegetable stew flavor had begun to blossom in  a cooking pot in front of him, but the elf's face showed clearly  that he had returned without any tasty  piece of cake. 

“ Geatwe ** (dear) ** … I see the merchant has promised you nothing…”

Athair put the knife, he had been wildly and desperately choping vegetables with, aside.

“This is the third one, Aeni, the third.”

“And what do they say?”

“ Different things .  That the orders for leather have been booked far ahead. One said he had no refined leather suitable for my level of craftsmanship. Though I asked only for some rough material for everyday needs. The purses are not the only thing I am making. Speak of those…” Athair ran thoughtfully his fingers through the thick curls of hair. 

The  she -elf sighed with sadness. The purses – the  favourite Athair’s goods – were gentle to touch and reliable to use. Moreover, it was  Aenerewel who had invented their decorative pattern – fancy-looking ferns. 

For the last months the roses had been growing on the wares – for the knights of the order – and the fire had been dancing – on the covers of holy books and the pouches for the taxes to pay the needs of the church with.

“What if…hmm…exactly! How about visiting the merchant, whose daughter I’ve recently treated?”

“Yes, I remember, I’ve already called on him on the way home. An assistant greeted  me, we arranged a meeting the day after tomorrow. So… It’s almost ready, here it is,  mo or  ** (my “gold”, my dear) ** , how about a dinner now?”  Athair put a steamy bowl in front of his wife. “I will eat later. Need to keep working while I have enough leather for the current orders. Thank the gods, I am as provident as a squirrel.”

“ Yes ,  geatwe .  We will hope for the better .”  Aenerewel was looking thoughtfully through the steam.


	24. The lucky coincidence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am publishing an extra chapter this week to congratulate my dear readers on the 8th of March!
> 
> If you'd like to see the illustration to the chapter and the updates, glad to see you at Not_Your_Dhoine_Fiction instagram:  
> https://www.instagram.com/not_your_dhoine_fiction/

“I think it’s enough, isn’t it? What do you think?” Athair swapped the plate with the dried meat and the rose wine jug around once again, occasionally moving a little bowl with lingonberry jam. It would be nice to call on to the tavern and ask Katharina to sell a bottle of elven wine under the counter. But it would go to the heads of those unaccustomed to it, and the business matters are to be solved with a clear mind. 

“The bread would be ready in minutes,” Aenerewel appeared in the doorway surrounded by the honey smell. “Help me with it, I’m afraid to burn myself. Oh, my clumsy fingers, I hope it is the matter that will pan out today, and not the pans to be on fire...” 

Yesterday evening Athair had rushed home from his tiny shop room in the city running like hell. One of the Merchant Guild members had sent his representative to discuss some leather supplies. Upon seeing the proof of the elf’s craftsmanship, the representative informed Athair on his wish to see the home workshop. It had been late, and the meeting was arranged for the next day, one hour before noon – due to a lucky coincidence the merchant’s other important visit had been fallen through, so... 

“Why to waste time, if one can spend it to meet such a skillful craftsman as you are?” 

The house of Aenerewel and Athair stood in a distance, closer to the woods, where a little herb garden had been laid out. After getting the directions how to find the way on the elven outskirts, the representative asked: 

“Isn’t it your wife, I mean, the famous healer in the slums, whom the local folk loves so much?” 

“Yes, this is she.” - Athair had blushed with pride. “And among all the local people it is me, who loves her more than anybody.” 

After all those previous refuses, the politeness of the guest had been refreshing for the heart, like the rain refreshes a dusty street. 

*** 

“Auntie Aeni, auntie-e- Aeni-i...” a girl was running around the elven village and then nearly crushed into the table for drying the herbs. 

“My gods, what has happened?” Aenerewel caught the child and stopped the rain of garden sage, medick and horsetail bundles. 

“The father, the father...” 

Aenerewel seemed to know the scars and broken bones of the father, who was professionally kicking out either the money from the fighting pit visitors or the unlucky casino gamblers themselves. So, she seemed to know those scars and broken bones even better than his wife – a shrewd woman, who was selling some jewelry of dubious origin at the taverns and squares. The business was quite successful – the couple even had enough money to educate the child: a former Melitele sister, expelled from the temple for the disobedience, rented a corner in one of the taverns, where she was looking after the kids and teaching them all the things she knew. 

The waterfall of child’s tears meant the only one thing: games were over, and the beaten patient was waiting for the healer in the fighting pit. 

“Auntie Aeni, will you help us?” 

Yes, three days ago she visited her last patient. Yes, the fighting pits are not the best place for pregnant women. Yes, she has the bread on fire, the worrying husband and the merchant, who will soon arrive at her house. 

“Yes.” 

While comforting the blubbering child, giving her a piece of honey bread and helping his wife with a healer’s suit, Athair joked: 

“I’ve just wanted to show your cloak to the merchant. Would get an order for the Melitele sisters...” 

“I’m sure, you’ll get it.” On the points of her toes, the she-elf kissed the pointy ear with a whisper: 

“ N'ess wal **(Good luck)**.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually an English version of my original fic written in Russian, that's why I didn't mark it as a translation work.
> 
> Instagram tag of the story: #wherethefiresareblossomingbright
> 
> English version is currently in the process of translation (1 chapter every week).
> 
> Link to the Russian version:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289399/chapters/66674419


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